The cars of Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson failed pre-qualifying inspection at Sears Point the other day. NASCAR has been pretty strict on policing COT rules infractions (even ones without any performance or safety issue), so everyone is expecting the hammer to drop on the two crew chiefs and a hefty fine and points deduction.

Big deal.

They’ve already gotten away with it as far as I’m concerned. NASCAR didn’t let the two cars qualify, but still let them start. If the rule infraction was so bad, the teams should have been sent home.

Gordon started 41st and finished 7th, while Johnson started 42nd and finished 17th. Together they took over a quarter of a million dollars in prize money away from the other teams. Sure, NASCAR will probably fine the crew chiefs and drivers and maybe even suspend the crew chiefs.

It should be painfully obvious however, that that doesn’t work. If your crew chief is sent home from the Daytona 500 and you still win, what’s the punishment there? “Oh, that shows how deep the talent runs at Hendrick Motorsports,” some might say. That may be the case, and reports are that both crew chiefs are preparing their teams for their suspensions.

But can anyone explain to me how a car can win if it’s not on the track? Obviously, it can’t. Fines, points deductions, and suspensions aren’t working. Tell the team to pack up and go home, then you’ll get their attention. Basically, that’s all three penalties in one. Plus, they may end up having to refund some sponsor money. It won’t take too many missed races for the sponsor to start putting pressure on the teams to behave.

As far as the race itself goes, as usual with road course races, it bored me nearly to tears (at least what I watched of it). That race is way too long. I’d pass by that channel in my channel surfing, and it just seemed to go on forever. There’d be 50 laps to go, then 45 minutes later, there’d be 45 laps to go (ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much).

I did watch the last 10 or so laps (or was that the last hour?) and was interested to see if Juan Montoya would run out of gas or not. I wonder if they intentionally said they were two laps short just to get Kevin Harvick to back off?